Any Port in a Storm (24 page)

It feels so strange to be sitting in Mira's dining room with the sun pouring through the windows on a Monday afternoon. I miss my job. I should be listening to Alice and Parker banter right now instead of sitting here trying to figure out exactly how deep a shithole I'm wading through.
 

"We need to find Saturn," Mira says.

"You're not wrong." I rub my eye. "How exactly do you propose we do that?"

Mira's smile is dry enough to
 
leech water from a bog. "I have a really bad idea."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"
 

I think it's the first time I've heard Wane swear, and oddly enough, it's the final puzzle piece that tells me she and Mira are definitely family.

"Come on, Wane. You know his scent. You can try to track him." Mira cajoles with the best of them.

Wane's still in her scrubs — this time a boring midnight blue set — and she looks at me as if I'm supposed to bail her out of this. I shrug and put my hands in the air. I don't even know what her animal form is, but I do know that asking a morph to change is insulting, like asking them to do a trick.

Witches hate that too.

I suppose if someone came up to me with an imp in a cage, a hopeful expression, and a request of, "Come on, Mediator! Kill! Kill!" I'd be kind of pissed too.

"It's Saturn," Mira says.
 

We decided not to tell Wane the whole story, but we filled her in enough, telling her that Saturn found out some dirt on a high-up Mediator who tried to kill him, and that's why he's running scared. So far that story hasn't quite been enough to get her to help, though.

Wane glares at me now, as if she's decided this is entirely my fault. Her earrings have lightning bolts on them, and they glint in the light from the now-setting sun.

I shrug at her as if to tell her this wasn't my brilliant plan.

"Please," says Mira. "If we don't find him, someone else might find him first."

I'm not so sure it's Mira's words that make Wane's gaze shift from me to her and soften, but whatever it is, Wane slowly nods.
 

"I just need a drink of water first," she mutters. She almost stomps into the kitchen to get one, filling a Dora the Explorer tumbler with water from the fridge filter and chugging it.
 

When she's finished, she tosses the tumbler into the sink with a clatter and heads toward Mira's room.

Mira shoots me a grateful look and follows, with me a little behind her.
 

Even though the first time I met Wane was in a triage situation, I feel apprehensive about bringing her into this. We don't know what we'll find with her sniffing out a trail, and even though she can handle a shade bleeding to death and babies popping out of vaginas, I don't know if she knows the pointy end of a sword from a handle.

Though I suppose it's possible her other form has no need of swords at all.

I've never actually seen a morph change to animal form. Morphs usually live in their human forms, and they keep to themselves. Occasionally there's a reality show about them, but they never do that well and usually get canceled after a season or two. I think a grizzly morph went a bit nuts in Seattle a couple years back and changed in front of the troll sculpture, but that's about it.
 

I feel strange following Mira and Wane back to Mira's bedroom, like I'm about to watch Wane strip naked.

When she actually starts stripping off her clothes, I sort of want to kick myself for that analogy.

In spite of the awkwardness of the situation, Wane strips to her skin without shame or self-consciousness. I'm so used to naked men that you'd think I wouldn't blink at a naked woman, but it's a little different when the person's default is clothes.

She even takes her earrings off and puts them on Mira's bedside table.

Her change begins so gradually that I almost don't notice at first.

The air around her shimmers like the beginnings of a hells-hole. In the films, most morphs are played by humans or witches, so the CGI departments go a little overboard. Hair growing dramatically, teeth elongating, the kind of stuff that looks shocking on a big silver screen.

But Wane's change seems to happen both slowly and all at once. One moment, there's a nude woman standing in front of me, and, like a strange trick of the light, the next moment there's a mountain lion.

She's a gods damned mountain lion.
 

Her whiskers go forward, and the tip of her tail twitches. She gives me a look that says, "Hope you enjoyed the show."

Wane pads over to Mira's bed on paws bigger than my palms. With a chuffing sound and a half-jump, her front paws are on the bed, and Wane sniffs at the quilt and the pillow. She gets all the way up on the bed a moment later, and Mira sighs.
 

"You better not tear up my quilt," she says.

Wane growls, but she hops back down on the far side of the bed and walks to the window, nudging her head at it pointedly.

Mira opens the window, and Wane leaps out.

"Come on," Mira says. We head out to the side door and meet up with Wane again on the south side of the house.

I hope none of the neighbors are trigger happy.
 

Standard protocol with large, non-hellkin animals is to call the SPCA hotline — yes, the morphs have a branch of the SPCA — but we're in the South, and people around here still like their guns a little too much. Few years back, some twitchy homeowner stood his ground against a wolf that turned out to be somebody's teenager. The kid lived, thank the gods, but the shooter got eighteen to life.

I like swords for more reasons than their looks. Less chance of accidental murder.

Mira lives in East Nashville, in one of the neighborhoods off Gallatin Avenue, and it's not exactly normal to see two Mediators and a mountain lion strolling down Sumner.
 

Wane's tail keeps flicking right and left as we walk, and Mira and I follow as close behind as we can. The sky above us is afire with pink and orange, great swaths of colors igniting the clouds. A couple bright stars appear to the north, and the rush of traffic on Gallatin meets my ears.

A cop car speeds south on Gallatin, siren wailing through the twilight. A moment later, another one. I look at Mira, who shrugs.
 

Wane keeps heading toward the main road, her nose low to the ground and her paws making heavy pats on the concrete of the sidewalk. When we reach the road, Wane looks up at us and gives us the dirtiest look a cat can manage. At a lull in traffic, she leaps into the street.
 

Mira curses and takes off after her, and I follow, my ears ringing from a third siren and the screech of tires as another cop car spins out taking the turn onto Gallatin. A few blocks down, the red and blue lights flash, illuminating a diner sign.

The Waffle Spot.
 

Where Lena Saturn, Saturn's mother used to work.
 

"Stop," I say. My chest feels tight as I look south down Gallatin at the sign.
 

Wane and Mira stop, looking at me. Wane jerks her head to the west, straight forward where we're heading.

"You two follow the trail. I'll catch up."

"What is it?"

"I don't know." I break into a run, breathing deep. The air smells like fast food and car exhaust.
 

A fourth cop car comes speeding up from the south. When I reach the block the Waffle Spot's on, the tight feeling in my chest constricts. There's blood. I can smell it from here.

I see a lump, visible just on the other side of a police car. It's draped in blood-soaked flannel.

Even though I only saw the guy once when I was looking for leads on Lena Saturn, I'm sure it's him. Flannel Crack. Dumpy white dude who sat at the bar and was friendly with Lena's friend Grace. Had a couple inches of his ass crack exposed, and that's why I gave him such a creative name. Now he's dead in front of me. And off to the side, too.
 

I look around, scanning the area for any sign of movement that's out of the ordinary. Some diner customers are huddled and crying. Witches on dinner break, a few hipster morphs, a smattering of distraught humans.

Then I look up, because if there's ever anything you learn as a Mediator, it's that threats don't always stay eye level.

There's a flicker on the Waffle Spot roof, and I catch a glimpse of a bare butt.

Shades.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I skirt the cops who are busy cordoning off the parking lot with their yellow crime scene tape. Even though it's not their jurisdiction, they'll secure the scene long enough for someone from the Summit to get here.

I ignore the thought that I could be that someone.

The parking lot is full of pot holes, and I run around the side of the diner. The stench of the dumpster blossoms in the air, and a rivulet of some unknown gods-awful substance finds its way through the cracks in the asphalt. Darting around back, there are a few beat up junker cars. And Carrick, leaning against one, nekkid as a jaybird who lost its feathers.

"What happened here?" I ask.

"What are you doing here?" He looks at his fingernail and scrapes something red out from under it.

"I asked you first." I watch him, trying to keep my face neutral.

"Tracked the shades here. One of them killed the man out front." Carrick waggles his hand at me. "I managed to claw up one of them on the way out, but the other two were long gone."

"You didn't kill him."

"The man? Of course not, Ayala. What do you take me for?"

"Not the man up front." Poor Flannel Crack. "The shade."

"Last time I checked, some scratches weren't quite enough to put one of us down."
 

Fair enough. "And the other two?"
 

"Udo and Beex were chasing them, though these shades are…slippery."

Somehow I don't think he means they're covered in butter.

A scuffing sound behind me makes me turn. "A-Ayala?"

I see a young woman stick her head around the corner of the building, and a moment later, she sees Carrick. I grab her and clap my hand over her mouth before she can scream.

"Hiya, Grace," I say. "That's Carrick. He won't hurt you. Got it?"

She nods, but I don't release her for a moment. Carrick waves at her, gives me a meaningful look, and lopes away. Grace waves back, but he's already gone. I let her go and look her over.
 

Grace was one of Lena Saturn's friends. Stringy brown hair, consistently frightened expression, and not really the brightest. But if she's willingly coming to talk to me, she's got something to say.

"What happened?" I ask her.

"One of those monsters came and killed Dirk."

I take it Dirk is Flannel Crack. "I saw. Carrick and a couple of his friends are trying to find the killers."

Grace shakes her head, and I don't know if she's denying what I just said about Carrick or just in shock. My phone buzzes. Probably Mira.

"He said you'd come," Grace says.

My hand stops halfway to my pocket, where my phone is still buzzing. "What?"

"The one who killed Dirk. He said you'd come." Grace looks around, her eyes closed as if picturing everything again — or maybe trying to shut it out.

"Grace," I say. She doesn't open her eyes. I take her by the shoulder and give her a small shake. "Grace, this is important. I need you to answer something for me."

She doesn't open her eyes, but she nods. A tear slips out between her eyelids.
 

"Did the shade who did this — did he have any tattoos? Any markings you could distinguish?"

Grace shakes her head. "He was wearing a hat."

"Excuse me?"

"They were all wearing hats. There were three of them. They came into the diner and everyone started yelling, and they grabbed Dirk. Each of them grabbed an arm, one of them grabbed Dirk's head and —" Grace shakes her head harder, faster, and her eyes scrunch closed even more, though tears seep out anyway. "They were all wearing hats, but that was all. And the one who had Dirk's head said that you would come, and they all laughed, and they pulled Dirk out into the parking lot and pulled him apart."